Student loan debt is the bane of my millennial existence. A lot of 20-somethings are having to choose their student loan debt over paying for a nice apartment or buying a car, and despite all the warnings, I don’t think it’s something any of us prepared for.

But why is this number such a shock to us when we get that first bill? Didn’t we know what we were getting into when we signed up?

Short answer — not really. Walking into that loan office or filling out that first online application was all greek to me because I had no idea how any of it worked and assumed that it was something that I had to do to go to college.

I also assumed that it would all be fine and dandy and I’d totally understand it once I graduated. But no..

What I didn’t know was that 6 months after graduation, I would have 10 loan payments through 2 different companies adding to upwards of $700 a month.

After 2 years of struggling and ignoring those little postcards that student loan companies send in the mail with information on refinancing, I finally decided to see what it was all about.

Here is what I learned and how I got my payments down almost $200 (win!), plus a little snafu that proves the reality of human error.​What are your options for reassessing your student loans?When it comes to student loan debt, you have two choices. You can refinance them or you can consolidate them. Both of these methods roll all of your loans into one so you don’t have to worry about paying multiple loans and only have one payment per month.

You can’t consolidate private student loans, so I only had the option of refinancing. But if you have federal loans, you can decide to consolidate though the company you have loans with by contacting them and figuring out your options.

Something to consider when refinancing/consolidating loans is you can lose the original benefits of those loans by doing so.

Things like Income-Based Repayment Plans, Forbearance, Deferment, Forgiveness, Cancellation, and Discharge. Make sure to read into the loan provider you’re looking to use and see what types of benefits you may be losing if your reasoning for refinancing is that you literally cannot make your payments.

There are no benefits lost when refinancing private student loans (because there are really no benefits to begin with), so I went with that option.

Steps to Refinancing Student Loan Debt1. Explore Your Options & Choose a CompanyThere are a lot of companies out there that offer student loan repayment options, the most popular that I’ve seen are Citizens Bank, College Ave, and Sofi. Do some research online or check your mailbox and compare interest rates and benefits until you find a good fit for you.

I already had loans through Citizens and kept getting mail from them with enticingly lower rates so I decided to go ahead and use them.

2. Fill Out the ApplicationWhen you decide what company to use to refinance your loans, you have to start by filling out an application on their website.

You must provide information on your existing student loans. This includes billing statements, with payment address and token letters.

Token letters come from your loan providers and have information that lays out exactly how much each loan you owe is for. This helps the refinancing company to come up with an exact number of how much you’ll need from them to pay off your loans.

​You’ll also be asked for information on your income and expenses. Figures that include your monthly housing payments, pay stubs and other proof of income.

If you have a cosigner, they’ll ask for their information, as well.

3. Choose Your Interest Rate Once you’re approved for the loan, you’ll be able to choose an interest rate and the loan company will disburse funds to pay off your other providers.

This can take up to 2 weeks to process so if you log into your accounts and see that you still owe money, don’t freak out! (like I did).

4. Don't Pay Your LoansWhile you’re waiting for your refinance to process, DO NOT PAY YOUR LOANS! Even if the payment is due that day, the statements that you sent reflected what you owed when you refinanced, so if you pay anything towards that, you’re basically losing your money.

Kick back and enjoy your free month without loan payments! Get a pedicure or buy something nice for yourself (or be a responsible adult and put it into savings... whatever floats your boat!)

5. Log-in to Your New Account + Start Repaying (Again)After all is said and done you should receive another email from your loan provider with information on how to login to your new account so you can start making your one payment per month via their chosen repayment system.

When I say you SHOULD, I mean, if you’re not cursed and named Samantha Armstrong... here comes my snafu story…

After logging into my student loan repayment accounts to see if my loans were indeed paid off, I noticed that I owed a past due amount of almost $2,000 dollars to one of my providers. I contacted my provider and Citizens Bank and asked them what went on and after a lot of confusion, I decided to do some research, myself.

I noticed while going through and comparing my token letters to my billing statements that it seemed like one of the loans was missed. I figured this couldn’t be true because it’s their job to refinance loans and process token letter information so I sent another email to tell them what I found and it turns out that I was right!

While it’s not the end of the world to go from 10 loans through 2 companies to 2 loans through 2 companies, I was pretty frustrated when told that they did make a mistake but I wouldn’t be able to get that loan refinanced unless I did the entire application process all over again.

I decided that it wasn’t worth it because the payment was only around $60 a month and it was paid ahead until 2019 so I could miss a payment here or there and not face any real consequences or late fees.

In ConclusionIn the end, refinancing ended up saving me almost $200 a month and was a pretty painless process aside from my extremely fluky experience with them missing a loan.

If you feel like you’re drowning in debt, have interest rates all over the place, make multiple payments to multiple companies, and don’t feel like you can keep up, then refinancing or consolidating is a good option for you to look into.​While I’m still confused about how things work, I have a little bit more of a grasp on it all now and am proud of myself for troubleshooting and finding an issue when no one could figure out what was wrong.